shakuntala devi long information
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Shakuntala Devi
Shakuntala Devi (1929-2013), the subject of a new film released on Amazon Prime on Friday, has always been associated with an element of mystery. She was not formally educated, and was far from exceptional in cognitive tests, and yet she could perform calculations with large numbers in a few seconds, sometimes instantly. A look at her skills, and what is known about how she cultivated them:
So, what were her skills?
Cube roots:
It began with extracting cube roots of large numbers, which she could do in her head rapidly while still a child in the 1930s. Then in 1988, in a test of her abilities conducted by the psychologist Arthur Jensen at the University of California-Berkeley, Shakuntala Devi mentally calculated the cube roots of 95,443,993 (answer 457) in 2 seconds, of 204,336,469 (answer 589) in 5 seconds, and of 2,373,927,704 (answer 1334) in 10 seconds.
Higher roots:
She calculated the 7th root of 455,762,531,836,562,695,930,666,032,734,375 (answer 46,295) in 40 seconds. This means that 46,295 multiplied by itself seven times yields that number of 27 digits; Shakuntala Devi worked backwards from the 7th power to derive the root. This too was recorded in the test at Berkeley in 1988.
Long multiplication:
This is the skill that got her into the Guinness Book of Records in 1982. At Imperial College on June 18, 1980, Shakuntala Devi was asked to multiply two 13-digit numbers:
7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779.
She got the answer in 28 seconds — 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.
Calendar calculations:
Given any date in the last century, she could instantly say which day of the week that date fell on. For example, if you gave her the date July 31, 1920, she would immediately tell you that it was a Saturday. If the date was stated in the order month, day, year (for example, July-13-1920), her average response time was about 1 second. But when the dates were stated to her in the order year, month, day (for example 1920-July-31), “her answers came about as fast as one could start the stopwatch”, the 1988 test at Berkeley found
Beyond her numerical skills, how much mathematics did she study?
Shakuntala Devi authored several books, including at least half a dozen on calculations, mathematical puzzles, and grooming children in mathematical skills. The books show she was familiar with certain mathematical concepts that one usually learns during a formal education. For example, in some of her writings she discusses trigonometry and logarithms. It is most likely that she learnt these concepts from extensive reading, but there is not much literature available on this aspect of her life.
Even the film does not throw any light on this. While it is full of glimpses about her extraordinary calculating abilities, the film dwells very little on the mental processes these abilities were based on.
Shakuntala Devi
Shakuntala Devi (1929-2013), the subject of a new film released on Amazon Prime on Friday, has always been associated with an element of mystery. She was not formally educated, and was far from exceptional in cognitive tests, and yet she could perform calculations with large numbers in a few seconds, sometimes instantly. A look at her skills, and what is known about how she cultivated them:
So, what were her skills?
Cube roots:
It began with extracting cube roots of large numbers, which she could do in her head rapidly while still a child in the 1930s. Then in 1988, in a test of her abilities conducted by the psychologist Arthur Jensen at the University of California-Berkeley, Shakuntala Devi mentally calculated the cube roots of 95,443,993 (answer 457) in 2 seconds, of 204,336,469 (answer 589) in 5 seconds, and of 2,373,927,704 (answer 1334) in 10 seconds.
Higher roots:
She calculated the 7th root of 455,762,531,836,562,695,930,666,032,734,375 (answer 46,295) in 40 seconds. This means that 46,295 multiplied by itself seven times yields that number of 27 digits; Shakuntala Devi worked backwards from the 7th power to derive the root. This too was recorded in the test at Berkeley in 1988.
Long multiplication:
This is the skill that got her into the Guinness Book of Records in 1982. At Imperial College on June 18, 1980, Shakuntala Devi was asked to multiply two 13-digit numbers:
7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779.
She got the answer in 28 seconds — 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.
Calendar calculations:
Given any date in the last century, she could instantly say which day of the week that date fell on. For example, if you gave her the date July 31, 1920, she would immediately tell you that it was a Saturday. If the date was stated in the order month, day, year (for example, July-13-1920), her average response time was about 1 second. But when the dates were stated to her in the order year, month, day (for example 1920-July-31), “her answers came about as fast as one could start the stopwatch”, the 1988 test at Berkeley found
Beyond her numerical skills, how much mathematics did she study?
Shakuntala Devi authored several books, including at least half a dozen on calculations, mathematical puzzles, and grooming children in mathematical skills. The books show she was familiar with certain mathematical concepts that one usually learns during a formal education. For example, in some of her writings she discusses trigonometry and logarithms. It is most likely that she learnt these concepts from extensive reading, but there is not much literature available on this aspect of her life.
Even the film does not throw any light on this. While it is full of glimpses about her extraordinary calculating abilities, the film dwells very little on the mental processes these abilities were based on.